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Sanjay Gupta?

It will certainly raise the profile of the job higher than it has been since C. Everett Koop was in charge.
 
I was wondering about this when I heard it on NPR this afternoon. I honestly have no opinion because I have no clue who Gupta is...
 
MattusMaximus said:
I was wondering about this when I heard it on NPR this afternoon. I honestly have no opinion because I have no clue who Gupta is...
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Which a little surprising, since he is CNN's medical expert, and is on a LOT. Anybody who watches CNN on a semi regular basis knows who he is.
I am OK with the choice. Let's face it, being the Surgeon General isabout Public Relations and Getting messages out to the public (eating healthy is good, smoking is bad, etc) and the Permnanent staff are the experts in the various fields. Gupta has strong communication skills as well as being a respected MD, and that is probably all that is needed in this position.
 
dudalb said:
Which a little surprising, since he is CNN's medical expert, and is on a LOT. Anybody who watches CNN on a semi regular basis knows who he is.
I am OK with the choice. Let's face it, being the Surgeon General isabout Public Relations and Getting messages out to the public (eating healthy is good, smoking is bad, etc) and the Permnanent staff are the experts in the various fields. Gupta has strong communication skills as well as being a respected MD, and that is probably all that is needed in this position.
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Agreed. Exactly what he does now. He would be fine for the job if he wants it, but does he want it? He would probably be taking a pay cut if he accepted.
 
dudalb said:
Which a little surprising, since he is CNN's medical expert, and is on a LOT. Anybody who watches CNN on a semi regular basis knows who he is.
I am OK with the choice. Let's face it, being the Surgeon General isabout Public Relations and Getting messages out to the public (eating healthy is good, smoking is bad, etc) and the Permnanent staff are the experts in the various fields. Gupta has strong communication skills as well as being a respected MD, and that is probably all that is needed in this position.
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I agree. My wife and I have watched him quite a bit. He is really an advocate for traditional based medicine, not woo, and is very good at communicating.

Fordama
 
gdnp said:
It will certainly raise the profile of the job higher than it has been since C. Everett Koop was in charge.
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Don't forget Dr. Jocelyn Elders. A fave Republican target, and eventual sacrificial lamb, in the Clinton admin.
 
Run a Wiki search on him and the man looks like a real liberal hero. He was embedded with a Navy emdical unit in Iraq and is widely praised for lending a hand as needed as a neurtosurgeon. (He is a professor of neurosurgery.)

I see no ethical problems with him. He is also not likely to feed the piggies in corporate health care. Bill Frist probably hates the dude.
 
Randi blogged that he is a proponent of facilitated communication, which means he's not totally devoid of woo, but he is certainly no Dr. Oz, so I guess it isn't too bad.
 
From the Swift blog, "CNN reports that Sanjay Gupta, who has actively promoted facilitated communication as a valid and useful communication method, is being considered for United States Surgeon General."
If true, he is clearly unfit.
 
There has been a lot of whooie coming from the Surgeon General's office over time. It is a place for a bully pulpit for public health, but has become a place for politics. So while he may have some silly parts of him, overall he has a level head. If you want to see real silliness watch Larry King interview the folks taking care of Oprah. No wonder she can't lose weight -- she is being filled with BS
 
Anyone with a modicum of scientific training, even a MD, should know that FC is BS. If it can be substantiated that he supports FC, off with him.
 
Jeff Corey said:
Anyone with a modicum of scientific training, even a MD, should know that FC is BS. If it can be substantiated that he supports FC, off with him.
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I never heard of this concept, so I will reserve comment for now. Could you tell me where I might get a quick course on the subject?

And is it worse, in a government official, than belief in the Rapture or piddle-down ecconomics?
 
Skeptic Guy said:
Randi blogged that he is a proponent of facilitated communication, which means he's not totally devoid of woo, but he is certainly no Dr. Oz, so I guess it isn't too bad.
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I think an important skeptical principle is to judge people primarily by what they say and do rather than by what others say they have said and done.

That's not to say one should ignore what others say about a person. People who are familiar with a person's words and deeds are worth listening to, and may be helpful in describing those words and deeds and pointing us to primary sources where we can verify this for ourselves.

But it is too easy for people to be misled by blindly accepting one person's version of what another supposedly has said or done. Talk radio listeners, for instance, are routinely misled in this fashion.

While I hold James Randi in much higher regard than I hold, say, Rush Limbaugh, I think it's important to apply that principle not simply to people one is inclined to be suspicious of but also to people one is inclined to trust. So before we start talking too confidently about what Sanjay Gupta believes about facilitated communication, it would be good to refer to things Gupta has actually said or written about the subject.
 
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